[CounterCorp] Is it immigrants -- or corporations -- that are acting illegally?

[countercorp-news at countercorp.org]

Reclaiming the Issues: "It's an Illegal Employer Problem"

  by Thom Hartmann

(CommonDreams.org, July 5) -- Every time the media -- or a Democrat  
-- uses the phrase "Illegal Immigration" they are promoting one of  
Karl Rove's most potent Republican Party frames. The reality is that  
we don't have an "illegal immigration" problem in America. We have an  
"illegal employer" problem.

	Yet it's almost never mentioned in the mainstream media, because to  
point it out could slightly reduce the profits and CEO salaries of  
many of America's largest multi-state and multinational corporations  
-- who both own the media and contribute heavily to conservative  
politicians. Republicans would prefer that the "criminals" covered in  
the press are working people, and that corporate and CEO criminals  
not get discussed.

	As the Busby/Bilray election contest showed, "illegal immigration"  
is a red-hot issue for American voters. The Democrat Busby was way  
ahead until she committed a faux pas before a group of Latinos,  
leading to (false) media reports (particularly on right-wing talk  
radio) that she was encouraging illegal immigrants to vote for her in  
the upcoming election.

	Her Republican opponent seized on this and hammered the district  
with ads for the last few days of the campaign (while voting machines  
curiously went home at night with some of the poll workers), and now  
a Republican lobbyist has taken the seat of a Republican congressman  
convicted of illegal deals with Republican lobbyists.

	Encouraging a rapid increase in the workforce by encouraging  
companies to hire non-citizens is one of the three most potent tools  
conservatives since Ronald Reagan have used to convert the American  
middle class into the American working poor. (The other two are  
destroying the governmental protections that keep labor unions  
viable, and ending tariffs while promoting trade deals like NAFTA/WTO/ 
GATT that export manufacturing jobs.)

	As David Ricardo pointed out with his 'Iron Law of Labor' (published  
in his 1814 treatise, "On Labor") when labor markets are tight, wages  
go up. When labor markets are awash in workers willing to work at the  
bottom of the pay scale, unskilled and semi-skilled wages overall  
will decrease to what Ricardo referred to as "subsistence" levels.

	Two years later, in 1816, Ricardo pointed out in his "On Profits"  
that when the cost of labor goes down, the result usually isn't a  
decrease in product prices, but rather an increase in corporate and  
CEO profits. (This is because the marketplace sets prices, but the  
cost of labor helps set profits. For example, when Nike began  
manufacturing shoes in Third World countries with labor costs below  
U.S. labor costs, it didn't lead to $15 Nikes -- their price held,  
and even increased, because the market would bear it. Instead, that  
reduction in labor costs led to Nike CEO Phil Knight becoming a multi- 
billionaire.)

	Republicans understand this very well, although they never talk  
about it. Democrats seem not to have read Ricardo, although the  
average American gets it at a gut level. Thus, Americans are  
concerned that a "flood of illegal immigrants" coming primarily  
across our southern border is, to paraphrase Lou Dobbs, "wiping out  
the American middle class." And there is considerable truth to it, as  
part of the three-part campaign mentioned earlier.

	But Dobbs and his fellow Republicans say the solution is to "secure  
our border" with a fence like that used by East Germany, but that  
stretches a distance about the same as that from Washington to  
Chicago. It'll be a multi-billion-dollar boon to Halliburton and  
Bechtel, who will undoubtedly get the construction and maintenance  
contracts, but it won't stop illegal immigration. (Instead, people  
will legally come in on tourist and other visas, and not leave when  
their visas expire.)

	The fact is that we had an open border with Mexico for several  
centuries, and "illegal immigration" was never a serious problem.  
Before Reagan's presidency, an estimated million or so people a year  
came into the U.S. from Mexico -- and the same number, more or less,  
left the U.S. for Mexico at the end of the agricultural harvest  
season. Very few stayed, because there weren't jobs for them.

	Non-citizens didn't have access to the non-agricultural U.S. job  
market, in large part because of the power of U.S. labor unions  
(before Reagan, 25% of the workforce was unionized; today the private  
workforce is about 7% unionized), and because companies were  
unwilling to risk having non-tax-deductible labor expenses on their  
books by hiring undocumented workers without valid Social Security  
numbers.

	But Reagan put an end to that. His aggressive war on organized labor  
(begun in 1981), combined with his 1986 amnesty program, in effect  
told both employers and non-citizens that there would be few  
penalties and many rewards to increasing the U.S. labor pool (and  
thus driving down wages) with undocumented immigrants. A million  
people a year continued to come across our southern border, but they  
stopped returning to Latin America every fall because instead of  
seasonal work they were able to find permanent jobs. The magnet  
drawing them? Illegal employers. Yet in the American media, illegal  
employers are almost never mentioned.

	Lou Dobbs, the most visible media champion of this issue, always  
starts his discussion of the issue with a basic syllogism: 1) Our  
border is porous. 2) People are coming across our porous border and  
diluting our labor markets, driving down U.S. wages. 3) Therefore we  
must make the border less porous. Dobbs' syllogism, however, ignores  
the real problem, the magnet drawing people to risk life and limb to  
illegally enter this country -- illegal employers. Our borders have  
always been porous (and even with a "fence" will still allow  
"tourists" by the millions), but we've never had a problem like this  
before.

	And it's not just because poverty has increased in Mexico -- today,  
about half of Mexico lives on less than $2 a day, but 50 years ago  
half of Mexico also lived on the equivalent of $2 today. Our trade  
and agricultural policies are harmful to Mexican farmers (and must be  
changed!), but we were nearly as predatory 50 years ago (remember the  
rubber and fruit companies, particularly in Central America?).

	Yet fifty years ago we didn't have an "illegal immigration" problem,  
because back then we didn't have a conservative "illegal employer"  
problem. As the Washington Post noted in an article by Hsu and  
Lydersen on June 19, 2006:

> "Between 1999 and 2003, worksite enforcement operations were scaled  
> back 95 percent by the Immigration and Naturalization Service,  
> which subsequently was merged into the Homeland Security  
> Department. The number of employers prosecuted for unlawfully  
> employing immigrants dropped from 182 in 1999 to four in 2003, and  
> fines collected declined from $3.6 million to $212,000, according  
> to federal statistics. In 1999, the United States initiated fines  
> against 417 companies. In 2004, it issued fine notices to three."

	The hiring crimes of illegal employers are being ignored by the law,  
and rewarded by the economic systems of the nation. Proof that this  
simple reality is ignored in our media (much to the delight of  
Republicans) is everywhere you look. For example, check out a series  
of national polls on illegal immigration done over the past year at  
www.pollingreport.com/immigration.htm. A typical poll question is  
like this one from an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll conducted in  
June, 2006:

> "When it comes to the immigration bill, the Senate and the House of  
> Representatives disagree with one another about what should be done  
> on the issue of illegal immigration.
>
> "Many in the House of Representatives favor strengthening security  
> at the borders, including building a seven-hundred-mile fence along  
> the border with Mexico to help keep illegal immigrants from  
> entering the United States, and they favor deporting immigrants who  
> are already in the United States illegally.
>
> "Many in the Senate favor strengthening security at the borders,  
> including building a 370-mile fence along the border with Mexico to  
> help keep illegal immigrants from entering the United States, and  
> they favor a guest worker program to allow illegal immigrants who  
> have jobs and who have been here for more than two years to remain  
> in the United States.
>
> "Which of these approaches would you prefer?"

	The question: "Or would you prefer companies that employ  
undocumented workers be severely fined or put out of business?"  
wasn't even asked. The word "employer" appears nowhere in any of the  
questions in that poll. Nor is it in the CBS News immigration poll.  
Or in the Associated Press immigration poll. Or in the Fox News  
immigration poll. Only the CNN poll asked the question: "Would you  
favor increasing penalties for employers who hire illegal  
immigrants?" Two-thirds of Americans of all party affiliations said,  
"Yes," but it went virtually unreported in mainstream media coverage.

	"Illegal immigration" is really about "illegal employers." As long  
as Democrats argue it on the basis of "illegal immigration" they'll  
lose, even when they're right. Instead, they need to be talking about  
"illegal employers." Politically, it's not a civil rights issue, it's  
a jobs issue, as working Americans keep telling pollsters over and  
over again. "Mass deportations" and "fences" are hysterical and false  
choices. Start penalizing "illegal employers" and non-citizens  
without a Social Security number will leave the country on their own.  
And they won't have to confront death trying to cross the desert back  
into Mexico -- Mexican citizens can simply walk back into Mexico  
across the border at any legal border crossing (as about a million  
did every year for over a century).

	Tax law requires that an employer must verify the Social Security  
number of their employees in order to document, and thus deduct, the  
expense of their labor. This is a simple task, and some companies,  
like AMC Theatres, are already doing it. For example, Cameron Barr  
wrote in the Washington Post on April 30, 2006, that: "At one area  
multiplex owned by AMC, the Rio 18 in Gaithersburg, 11 employees  
'decided to resign' this month after they could not rectify  
discrepancies that arose during the screening, said Melanie Bell, a  
spokeswoman for AMC Entertainment Inc., which is based in Kansas  
City, Mo. She said such screening is a routine procedure that the  
company conducts across the United States."

	Not wanting to be an illegal employer, the Post noted that AMC "has  
long submitted lists of its employees' Social Security numbers to the  
Social Security Administration for review. If discrepancies arise,  
she [company spokeswoman Bell] said in an e-mailed response to  
questions, 'we require the worker to provide their original Social  
Security card within 3 days or to immediately contact the local SSA  
office.' She said the process is part of payroll tax verification and  
occurs after hiring."

	Easy, simple, cheap, painless. No fence required. No mass  
deportations necessary. No need for Homeland Security to get  
involved. When jobs are not available, most undocumented workers will  
simply leave the country (as they always did before), or begin the  
normal process to obtain citizenship that millions (including my own  
sister-in-law -- this hits many of us close to home) go through each  
year.

	Republicans, however, are not going to allow a discussion of  
"illegal employers." Instead, they will continue to hammer the issue  
of "illegal immigrants," and tie that political albatross around the  
necks of Democrats (who seem all too willing to accept it). Bob  
Casey, for example, was beating the pants off Rick Santorum in the  
Pennsylvania senatorial campaign, until Santorum began running an ad  
that says:

> "Bobby Casey announced his support of a Senate bill that grants  
> amnesty to illegal immigrants, shocking hardworking taxpayers all  
> across Pennsylvania. Now Casey's trying to wiggle out of it by  
> saying the bill doesn't offer amnesty and requires illegal  
> immigrants to pay their back taxes. Either Casey didn't read the  
> bill, or he's trying to deceive you. The Washington Times reports  
> the legislation gives amnesty to 11 million who are here illegally,  
> and paves the way for 66 million more immigrants to enter the  
> country. The bill also forgives two of the last five years of back  
> taxes for illegal immigrants, something the IRS would never do for  
> you. This Casey-supported bill even gives illegal aliens Social  
> Security benefits for the time they were here illegally.  
> Fortunately, Rick Santorum voted against the bill, and Rick's  
> leading the fight to make sure it never becomes law. Now you know  
> the advantage of having in our corner a fighter like Rick Santorum."

	Casey is still ahead, but the ad is visibly eroding his support. As  
George Will pointed out in a June 18, 2006 op-ed titled "Calculating  
Immigration Politics":

> "Many Republicans, looking for any silver lining in an abundance of  
> dark clouds, think the immigration issue might be a silver bullet  
> that will slay their current vulnerability. The issue is, as  
> political people say, a 'two-fer.' Opposition to the Senate bill,  
> and support for the House bill, puts Republican candidates where  
> much of the country and most of their party's base currently is --  
> approximately: 'Fix the border; then maybe we can talk about other  
> things.' And opposition to the Senate bill distances them from a  
> president who, although rebounding recently, has approval ratings  
> below 40 percent in 29 states."

	Now even Bush is talking like the Republicans in the House of  
Representatives -- time to "get tough" and give Halliburton a few  
hundred billion to build a fence. But still nobody is talking about  
the real problem here -- the illegal employers. Hopefully one day  
soon a dialogue like this fictitious one may ensue on, for example,  
Face The Nation:

BOB SCHIEFFER: Senator, do you really think the solution to the  
illegal immigration problem in America is to offer amnesty instead of  
building a fence?

SEN. STABENOW: Bob, I think you've been drinking some of Karl Rove's  
Kool-Aid. Illegal immigrants aren't the cause of undocumented workers  
driving down wages in this country. It's caused by illegal employers.  
We need to do something about these corporate criminals.

SCHIEFFER (baffled): Illegal employers? But what about the illegal  
aliens?

STABENOW: Bob, the aliens wouldn't be here if they didn't think they  
could get a job. Of course, we need to clean up U.S. agricultural  
subsidies and trade policies that are causing human suffering in our  
neighboring countries, but to truly protect the pay standards of  
workers here in the United States we need to crack down on the  
illegal employers. They're the magnets that are drawing people in  
from all over the world, many of whom come in as tourists and then  
overstay because they get illegal jobs. And these illegal employers  
are breaking the law -- both immigration laws and IRS laws. I suggest  
that we need to tighten up these laws against illegal employers,  
adding huge fines for first offenses, jail time for CEOs for second  
offenses, and the corporate death penalty -- dissolve their charters  
to operate -- for repeat offenders.

SCHIEFFER (stammering): The, the, er, did you say "corporate death  
penalty"? You mean against companies?

STABENOW: Better companies die than human beings. These illegal  
employers, in their quest for ever-cheaper labor, are drawing people  
to cross our borders in ways that cause many people to die in the  
deserts of the southwest. These people were executed, for all  
practical purposes, by the policies of a few greedy and lawbreaking  
American companies. When companies are repeat offenders, they should  
be dissolved, their assets sold to reimburse their shareholders, and  
let other, more ethical companies pick up the slack. We used to do  
this all the time in America when companies behaved badly. Up until  
the 1880s, an average of around 2000 companies a year got the  
corporate death sentence in the U.S.

SCHIEFFER (bug-eyed): But what about the illegal immigration problem?

STABENOW (patting Schieffer's hand): It's okay, Bob. You shouldn't  
listen so much to those Republicans. There isn't really much of an  
illegal immigration problem -- it's an illegal employer problem. When  
we clear up the illegal employer problem in this country, we'll be  
back like we were before Reagan started allowing employers to behave  
illegally. When non-citizens can't get a job, most of them will go  
home, as they always have in the past. We don't need a fence, we  
don't need amnesty, we don't need mass round-ups or deportations, and  
we for sure don't need guest workers. We have as many unemployed  
citizens in this nation as there are illegal immigrants -- in my  
state of Michigan, for example, Flint and Detroit have massive  
unemployment since Reagan and his corporate cronies declared war on  
working people. When we get rid of illegal employers, that's one step  
in helping the job market tighten up so that legal employers will  
have to pay a living wage to attract legal citizens to work. That and  
rational labor and trade policies, and we can begin to restore our  
middle class and put our cities back together.

SCHIEFFER (nodding): It makes sense, Senator. An "illegal employer  
problem." Who would have thought of that?

STABENOW (smiling): Well, Bob, the Republicans thought about it, back  
in the 1980s. But they thought it was a good idea. Which is why we  
have this mess today. Get rid of the illegal employers -- toss a few  
CEOs into jail and shut down the outlaw companies -- and the rest of  
this part of the problem will be easy and inexpensive to fix...

-----------------------

Thom Hartmann ( www.thomhartmann.com) is a 'Project Censored' Award- 
winning best-selling author, and host of a nationally syndicated  
daily progressive talkshow carried on the Air America Radio network  
and Sirius. His most recent books include "Unequal Protection: The  
Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rights," and "We  
the People: A Call to Take Back America." His next book, due out this  
autumn, is "Screwed: The Undeclared War on the Middle Class and What  
We Can Do About It."